


Shore Leave

by Iambic



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 19:18:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iambic/pseuds/Iambic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sulu visits his family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shore Leave

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a prompt at Dreamwidth community random_fic_is_random and a portion of the Star Trek novel _The Kobayashi Maru_, by Julia Ecklar.

Shore leave means Chekov and Scotty take the first flights out to visit their families on the other side of the globe. It also means that Uhura has taken Spock to see _her_ family, a little nearer. McCoy stays put at Starfleet Command, making some bitter reference to the family he doesn't have, and Kirk does his captain thing – or maybe his best friend thing – and stays with him. They invite Sulu to join them in their exploration of San Franciscan sights and eats. "You grew up around here, right?" Kirk asks him. "So you know the best places to go."

Sulu respectfully declines. "I've seen all the tourist traps. Go get lost down Lombard Street or somewhere around Northbeach – that's the best way to get to know the city."

He stays in the Bay Area as well, but not at Starfleet Command, and not in any places where his crewmates are likely to go. The first day he takes a boat out on the bay and spends the morning remembering how to respond to wind and currents and only so many directions in which to go. He returns to Oakland damp and tired, and spends the rest of the day inside, with a cup of tea and a short stack of bright paper he picked up at a hobby shop on the way.

Next morning he wakes up and briefly considers a phone call. He hasn't told anyone he's back planetside, and assuredly there are people who would like to know. Sulu doesn't really feel up to talking to anyone today. Now that he's taken one day for himself, exhaustion gone ignored has made itself known to him, and all he wants to do is spend some time alone. He already misses the emptiness, the silence of deep space.

But shore leave means Sulu visits his family, too.

He spends the second day indoors anyway, emerging once to pop down the road to that taqueria that he smelled the day before. That evening, as the sun disappears behind the coastal Californian fog, Sulu boxes up the fruits of a day and a half's labour and walks to a park by the oceanfront.

Tetsuo is waiting there, as ever, and Sulu steps up to his side. "Here I am," he says, voice soft. "Pilot of the Enterprise. Then again, _you're_ not surprised."

He opens the box then, and paces up to the edge of the land. A very steep, but fairly short incline separates him from the shallow steely ocean, and the wind whips ocean spray into his face. Sulu tightens his windbreaker around himself and upturns the box over the water's edge. A small army of folded paper cranes float gracefully down to land in the waves, quickly swept under the water and into the bay.

"It's not a thousand, but I didn't think you'd mind," Sulu says, and smiles slightly. He pats the side of the stone as he passes by again. "After all, you're my great-grandfather. You're supposed to cut me some slack."

Sulu goes to see his mother the next day, and a few other friends and family members the days after that. He returns to Starfleet Command the day before the Enterprise is scheduled for departure. When Kirk asks him idly where he'd gone, Sulu tosses him another crane and doesn't answer directly.


End file.
